Pages

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Over at Paper Patch Crafts there is a challenge going on to create a Get Well card using this Sketch:
I recently learned how to make paper lilies, and so I wanted to try my hand at these for this card. Here is what I came up with:

I used the McGill Star Lily Punch and the Starburst to create the flowers and the leaves. I will likely do a tutorial on it soon. I had to improvise a little bit because I didn't have all the tools required to make it, but in the end I think it worked out. The font is one I found for free online. I can't recall the name of it, but I loved all the flourishes of it and think it turned out quite beautiful for the effect I was going for. The colors seem a little muted in the photo...I can't find my camera battery charger anywhere and so had to rely on my phone camera to take the picture. Fingers crossed I find that charger soon!!

The Challenge is going on now through March 4th. She has a really nice prize for the winning card...This Echo Park Kit! Come and join the fun! Tell her I sent you. :)

Friday, February 18, 2011

Awhile back I showed you a new mini-album that I made for my son Jeremy and his wife Kristiana. I also promised I would finish 2 more albums for my other 2 sons and their wives and finally I have them completed! Whew...what a time-consuming labor of love! I will show you all in a minute, but first I want to share with you all what an exciting February 13th I had! My 2nd son, Brandon called me on the 12th and said he and Elisha wanted to come over and visit me on the 13th and bring me a birthday cake. Well, my birthday happens to be the 21st, but who am I to turn down cake, let alone a visit from my kids. When they showed up....here is what the cake looked like:

Cute cake. Except...they don't have any children and....well...I had a 'duh' moment for a second or 2 before it dawned on me I get to be a Grandma AGAIN! Yay!! Love you kids!! Here is the album I made for them:

Brandon & Elisha

lots of pictures ahead. :)

﻿﻿

This is the cover. The flowers are handmade. I cut various flower shapes with the Forever Young cartridge, coated them with spray starch and used my heat tool to dry them and manipulate them a bit to shape. I then built them up by layers with little glue dots. I also added a few mini roses from a past tutorial. The flourishes are done with my I-Rock tool. I added a lot of foo-foo fun stuff on the edge and some Tim Holtz corners to finish it off.

﻿﻿﻿﻿﻿

The paper inside this album is all from the Colorbok Neutral pack. The paper is already foiled and embossed in places so I added just a little here and there extra to make it a bit more special. I included a special tag in the front of all the albums explaining the album a little and encouraging them to add to it. The Paper-Bag mini's have lots of pockets and I made tags to go inside for them to add their own journaling or pictures.

﻿﻿

More improvising on making each page a litte different. I used various stamps and flowers here and there to add interest. The ribbon was added as a sort of corner grabber for the photos.

I added a butterfly into the crease on the page fold so the wings would open and close. There are a lot of extra pockets as well.

I covered some of my flowers with clear embossing powder and using the heat gun, added a lot of shine and thickness to the petals. I also created the waterfall photo display at the right. If you pull the string at the bottom, all of the photos flip upwards. I will show more about this on a later post.

There can't be too many tags! I added some fun rosette flowers for my tag toppers and finished them off with a heart covered in Glossy accents.

Another pocket with a photo tag.

I tried my hand at making some flourishes with puff paint. This will take a lot more practise!

I had crocheted the back of the flower. I thought it had an heirloom appeal to it.

But, wait...that is not all! Here is my 3rd Album! While we were all enjoying the cake together on the 13th, my oldest son and his wife showed up and then my 3rd son showed up too! That was such a surprise because he and his wife live in Washington State where he is stationed in the Coast Guard. I had no idea they were even in town...they wanted to surprise me! Here is their album:

Jordan & Olivia's Album

The cover is much like the previous one.

I decided this album would be more bright and colorful. The papers are from K & Company and the paper is called Citronella.

I found this adorable daisy ribbon at Walmart. The flower I made at Archivers this morning. They are having a free make and take and the tag was one of their projects. I thought it worked out in this album perfectly!

Here is a close up. The petals are made with the McGill petal punch. Love it. Of course, I had to buy it!

Some more flowers that were heat embossed to make them more vivid in color.

Lots of variety going on here. I used the Tim Holtz fragments to cover a few photos here and there.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Whew..where did the week go? I finally have the 5 winners for my free digi stamp for last weekends blog hop, and they are....

Cute card, I really like the inside. I am now a follower.

Hugs,

Melissa D

Kimmarie Baker said...

Happy 21st to your son! That is a cute "hog" for sure. I like how you did the inside too.

Debbie Kissel said...

I love the idea of doing 10 reasons-- my grandkids would love it!

I am a follower-- and enjoy your postings

EllenM said..

Your top ten list cracks me up and I just love that little hedgehog cut. TFS and thanks for the chance to win your very pretty digistamp. New follower and I'd love it if you were to follow me too.

ScrappinAnn said...

Hurray for February birthdays! Love your card and your description on how and why you made it is great!

I am a new follower and I will be back!

Please visit my blog to see why I love February!

Tonight I participated in a really fun Pajama party over at Paper Patch Crafts. It was a blast! Anne had challenges and games to play and despite problems with facebook we had a lot of fun. There were 3 card challenges that I participated in and I thought I would share them with you here tonight. There is plans to continue the party again tomorrow so I encourage everyone to go and join in on the fun over at the Patch!

The first card was Easter themed. We were encouraged to use pastel colors and include a chick, egg or bunny. I opted for the bunny. I used the Easter 2010 cartridge for Cricut and cut out 4 exact copies of the bunny on heavy cardstock. I then layered them together to create a faux chipboard effect.

I might add, we were given just 30 minutes to make these cards. Now, THAT is a challenge! (although, I do believe Anne allowed some extra time for everyone if they needed it)

The 2nd card had a theme that was: Wacky, Tacky and Weird. Oh my gosh...you should have seen some of the hilarity that ensued! I was laughing so hard. I myself couldn't think of anything that clever and so decided to take a literal approach. I free-handed a thumb tack and then colored it in with my copic markers. The rest is pretty much self-explanatory!

The final card was themed Funky Birthday Card. Well, I think I was still in my tacky and weird frame of mind, but here is what I threw together:

I used the Forever Young Cartridge for the glasses. They look similar to ones my mom used to wear in the late 60's...unbelievably...hers were orange though!!

So anyway, that is what I was up to this evening. It was fun. Come join us!! The birthday card challenge is still open and there are prizes to be won. Check it out! See you there. :)

Friday, February 4, 2011

Hello and welcome here from the fun blog stop at DD's blog. If you want to start all the way at the beginning of this VERY large and exciting hop you can go all the way back to Meighan's Blog.

Have a Hoggy Birthday...well, Ground "hog" Day anyway. Yes, February 2nd has now come and gone this very week, and many would not perhaps consider it a worthy holiday for Birthday wishes. But, this day happens to my son Jordan's birthday. He was kind enough to his mom on February 2nd back in 1990 not to try to climb back in after he saw his shadow! (thank you son!) My boy is now officially a man! He turned 21 and so I decided to get creative with my cricut and whip out a cute little card to send to him.

I of course had to give my Create a Critter cartridge some use. I couldn't find an actual groundhog but decided the hedgehog was fairly close....it has "hog" in it's name. Right?

I also cut out the "21"using the Sweet Treats Cartridge because I couldn't find exactly what I wanted the outside of the card to say. I kept thinking over some good lines from the movie, "Groundhog's Day"...my top 2 picks were:

"I like to see a man of advancing years throwing caution to the wind. It's inspiring in a way."

and

"This is one time where television really fails to capture the true excitement of a large squirrel predicting the weather."

But, in the end I decided to put the funny on the inside.

﻿﻿﻿﻿And so, there you have it. It's simple and sweet as things usually are when made with the cricut and that's the beauty of it. I hope you enjoy this and the other posts. There is still a lot more to see so please check out the next stop along this birthday hop with Melanie.